Notebooks sales are being bolstered significantly by the booming sales of low-cost netbook computers. Many may not have been familiar with the name MSI before its popular Wind netbook hit the market. MSI offers more than netbooks in the US market with a full line of notebook computers as well.

Yesterday MSI announced its latest, affordable ultraportable notebook called the EX300. The machine uses a 13.3-inch widescreen display and offers ATI HD3450 graphics. MSI says the notebook weighs 4.5 pounds with the 8-cell battery.

Two colors are available — red and blue — and the system includes Bluetooth and 802.11a/g/n networking. The CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile P7350 and the system runs Windows Vista Home Premium. The display resolution is 1280 x 800 and storage is to a 250GB HDD. Up to 4GB of RAM is supported and the video card has 256MB of VRAM. The EX300 retails for $999, making it a good deal for a portable machine.

MSI